Small shrines to Mary
According to Wikipedia, a camarín is a “chapel or room, usually behind the altar, in which an image is venerated.”
In terms of architecture and religious symbolism, the camarines in parish churches of the Yucatan Peninsula are oratories behind the main altar for the purpose of venerating and protecting images of the Mother of God. They are “Marian shrines”, as Dr. Pablo Chico Ponce de León, former State Coordinator of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), calls them.
Based on their age and their architectonic significance, experts consider the camarines to the Virgin in the churches at Izamal, Tabi, Uayma, Ticuch, Popolá, Yaxcabá and Dzemul to be jewels of sacred art.
In his book Architecture and sacred art in Yucatan: 1545-1823, Miguel A. Bretos states that the honor of being the first Marian camarín in New Spain belongs to the one built at Izamal between 1650 and 1656, to venerate the Immaculate Conception. Chico Ponce de Leon adds that the small chapel in the monastery complex dedicated to St. Anthony of Padua was carefully designed and built after the church and the cloister.
As for the shrine, also to the Immaculate Conception, at Tabi, a village in the municipality of Sotuta, it apparently dates back to 1700. The camerín at Tabi is notable for its subtle ornamentation and mural decoration, which shows images and scenes allusive to the Virgin Mary.
In the opinion of the Adopt an artwork Yucatan association, the camerín to the Virgin at Tabi is probably the only one in the State to preserve its original reredos, which is why this jewel was rescued and restored in June 2014.
Although the exact date of construction of the camerín to the Virgin of Candelaria in the monastery church of St. Dominic de Guzman in Uayma is not certain, historical sources point to the 18th century, probably long after the building of the church itself, in 1642. Given the devotion to Mary prevalent in the community, as well as the decoration of the interior and exterior walls of the church, the camarín was adorned with Mudejar-influenced geometric patterns forming flowers and stars in blue and white: the colors of the Virgin.
According to information from Adopt an artwork, the church at Ticuch, dedicated to St Elizabeth, dates from the 17th century, although Manuel Arturo Román Kalisch, in The construction of parish complexes in Vice-regal Yucatan, states that there already existed “a small stone church with a chapel” in 1581.
The camarín, which was added to the church around 1720, is dedicated to the Visitation, celebrating the event mentioned in Luke’s Gospel when Mary, pregnant with Jesus, visited her cousin Elizabeth, who was carrying John the Baptist at the same time.
The chapel at Popolá, a village near Valladolid, was erected in honor of St. Francis of Assisi and dedicated on the 13th of December 1613, a date which appears on a stone plaque attached to the building. Over a century later, Chico Ponce de León notes, a camarín was added, for the Virgin of Mercy, whose feast is celebrated between the 18th and 25th of September. According to the Dictionary of Yucatecan Spanish, the name Popolá means “water near the reeds” from póop, reed or root used to weave mats, and há, water.
Experts in restoration believe the camarín of the Virgin in the church of the Assumption in Yaxcabá was built between 1753 and 1755. Originally, the statue was in the chapel at the village of Mopilá, but a few hundred years ago it was moved to the municipal capital, Yaxcabá.
An old story tells how one day a farmer returning from his fields met “a beautiful woman, whom he greeted politely, but who left him with an odd sensation”. Some hours later, the townsfolk of Yaxcabá noticed that the Virgin was no longer in her camarín. After a long search they found her in the altarpiece in the chapel at Mopilá. This began the tradition of taking the holy image “home” to Mopilá, which is today a ghost-town, every 31st of July, her feast day.
Our Lady of the Expectation is the image of the Mother of Christ which occupies the camarín in the church at Dzemul, which the archaeologist Luis Millet Cámara believes dates from between 1780 and 1790. Although the church is dedicated to St. Anne, there is an especial devotion to Our Lady of the Expectation, who is carried in procession through the streets of the town each 18th of December, to pay her loving tribute.
The camarines in the churches at Izamal, Tabi, Uayma, Ticuch, Popolá, Yaxcabá and Dzemul share a common feature: their location. All seven are annexed to the east wall of the chancel, to which they are linked by a window that forms a niche in the main reredos. As these niche-windows, in the words of Chico Ponce de Léon, “had to be slightly elevated because of their position in the reredos, the floor of the camarín is also at a higher level than that of the chancel, so that in general, a staircase was built on the outer side of the apse to reach the camerín.
To visit the seven camerines, the opening times and times of religious services should be consulted.